


Fried Chicken

by Tejoxys



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Eventual Smut, Fast Build, Fear Play, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, I don't do fast build, I tried so hard to keep it light, Insecurity, M/M, Play Fighting, Pre-Slash, Romance, Smitten Pitch, So much talking, UST, What Was I Thinking?, Willfully Oblivious Jack, if your idea of romance is similar to gradeschoolers punching each other, meddling with canon, mild talk around suicidal impulses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-05-22
Packaged: 2018-01-07 21:02:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1124342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tejoxys/pseuds/Tejoxys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hot weather brings out the worst in people. For Jack and Pitch, bad decision-making is a competitive sport. </p><p>If you've never played Chicken, ...don't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Uncool

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the Blackice Week 2 prompt, "Heat/Melting." Set after the events of the movie... kind of. Clearly, something went a little differently in this timeline. I don't know why they're friends. They don't know why they're friends. This was just supposed to be some silly little thing, and it turned into a **thing**.

* * *

It was just so uncool, in every sense of the word. Before the kids could see him, summer never used to bother Jack this much. He simply flew off to colder haunts, carved rude symbols into undiscovered glaciers, harassed climbers on Everest, buzzed remote snowbound villages, and waited for the temperate lands to open up again. No one back then missed him, anyway. Now, the press of seasons blossomed from a pet peeve into full-blown resentment. All the perks of Guardianship, all the newfound power and confidence and belief in himself, and the world remained crisscrossed with invisible boundaries that liked to change on him just when he started to get comfortable.

A very few times in the early years, Jack had tried valiantly to trespass into places he Shouldn’t. Not shouldn’t, as in, workshop-at-the-North-Pole shouldn’t, but serious, capital-S-mortal-peril Shouldn’t. The North Wind was against him; it would carry him anywhere at a high enough altitude, but the moment he tried to descend too close to the equator, the wind angrily petered out below his feet, threatening to drop him. The same thing happened over other parts of the world during their summer. At such times, if the North Wind had a voice, Jack imagined that it would be yelling at him.

Other experiences taught Jack that fire and heat had effects on him similar to the worst effects of alcohol on humans. Crossing into summer on foot, for example, ended in a bleary-eyed heap on the cold stone floor of a charnel house in a forgotten churchyard, where he waited four shaky, nauseous, miserable days for a break in the weather.

Today, temperatures in the Central and Eastern United States reached new heights, spurring record-breaking electricity usage as everyone with an air conditioner ran that juice-guzzler as if their lives depended on it.

Today, every one of those people whose lives did not, in fact, depend on staying cold spared at least one longing thought for winter.

Today, Jack’s resentment boiled over. He was in exactly the wrong mood—a cocktail of loneliness, boredom, anger, and the dark playfulness that often overtook him at such times. He went looking for a partner in crime.

All of the other Guardians could pretty much go wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted, with varying ease and speed. It was kind of annoying, like Jack was nature’s un-favored child in a family that otherwise had really good genes. Maybe one day, he’d have that kind of freedom. For now, working with them had indirectly given him access to new places—if only he could convince anyone to take him there. Jack was sure neither North nor Toothiana would go along with what he had in mind today. Sandy might have given him a lift, but there was no way he’d want to come down and play, and that was half the point in going. Jack briefly considered asking Bunny… but these days, Bunny was always either weirdly protective over him, or dismissive.

So Jack sought out the one person he knew who hated the summer sun and loved breaking rules as much as he did.

* * *

Burgess was locked deep in July, so Jack had to use the secret-not-really-secret back route into the lair (an inexplicably short and direct tunnel hidden near that spiky monument in Antarctica). It was always a treat to see the Bogeyman jump a foot every time Jack dropped out of that particular tunnel. Pitch still clearly hadn’t gotten over Jack finding it in the first place. “Heyyyy, Pitch!”

“Frost.” Pitch composed himself, much like a cat pretending it had meant to slip and fall behind the radiator. “I was on my way out the door. What do you want?”

“Pffft, you’re going to work? No, no. You need to come with me.” Jack leaned on his staff and steepled his fingers charmingly. “Or rather, you need to take us both somewhere. For research purposes.”

Pitch gave him a lopsided look. “Spell out your intentions right now, because that sounded thoroughly terrifying out-of-context.”

“Aw, you’re always so suspicious. Don’t you trust me?” Jack batted his eyes. “I only ever want to play, right? I just need a little help traveling somewhere I can’t get to on my own.”

“Ah, no. I am not your chauffer.”

“Come on, we’ll spar when we get there. There’s this one closed-up parking garage with weird loops and bridges on the roof, it’ll be perfect.”

Pitch hesitated. “I don’t have time for idle play just now,” he said, knowingly or unknowingly inviting Jack to win him over.

Grinning, Jack slunk closer and slid a conspiratorial hand over Pitch’s shoulder. Erasing the touch barrier usually helped. “What if I can guarantee I’ll be afraid?”

“Hmm. What kind, and how badly?” Pitch leaned ever-so-slightly into Jack’s touch, much to Jack’s glee. _Gotcha_.

He spoke in a low voice directly into Pitch’s ear. “Mortally. Embarrassingly.”

“Oh, really?” Amusement warmed Pitch’s voice. “Well, go on and drop the other shoe, Frost. Where is this magically terrifying parking garage I’m supposed to whisk us off to?”

 Jack bit his lip to keep from giggling. “Wait for it: Boston.”

There was a beat.

“Jack, it is high noon in Boston right now.”

“I know.”

“It isn’t even overcast.”

“That’s right.” Jack waggled his eyebrows. “And that’s not all. One hundred and two degrees Fahrenheit,” he drawled, “on the asphalt.”

“You don’t say.”

“Ninety degrees in the shade.”

“Don’t you know what that will do to you? To me?”

“Duh. That’s the point.” He leaned in closer. “What’s the matter? You scared?”

Pitch toyed with a spike of Jack’s hair. “You’re the one in real danger. Suppose I up and leave you there?”

Jack tipped his chin impishly. “You could do that, yeah. And bring down everybody’s wrath, and lose your favorite playmate, and get a reputation for running away from a challenge…” He smirked up at Pitch with hooded eyes.

“It would still be a dreadful experience for you.”

“Mmmhm. It sure would.”

Pitch’s grin widened. “This is a terrible idea.”

“The worst. No, wait, it’s not the worst yet,” Jack said, holding up a hand. “How about we go all out and say whoever asks to go back first loses?”

“What happens to the loser?”

“I dunno. I think we just lose. Between the two of us, isn’t that bad enough?”

Pitch tapped his lip in thought. “We might say that the loser owes the winner something unspecified to be claimed later.”

“Now that,” said Jack, “is a terrible idea.”

 


	2. Blackout

“THIS WAS A TERRIBLE IDEA.” Jack lurched and fell again, the pavement feeling less and less like pavement and more like the rubbery, treacherous billows of an oven-hot Bouncy House from hell. Rapidly-shrinking pools of water stood everywhere, all that remained of numerous ice attacks. A bank of walls and pillars had cracked where Pitch’s body had hit them. Ice had done the rest and brought them down. The frost was long-gone from Jack’s clothing, his entire body was dripping-wet, and even the staff was starting to feel lukewarm. He groaned and heaved himself into the nearest bit of shade. It didn’t help.

“What? Are you finished already?” taunted Pitch from somewhere in the rubble.

Jack swore under his breath, more wetness dripping into his eyes. He dashed it away impatiently. “No way!”

There was cackling overhead as Pitch materialized on the underside of a pillar. Jack dodged a scythe-stroke and brought his staff up to retaliate. Instead, Pitch lost his own footing and fell. Jack laughed and booted him out into the sunlight again. The effort made his head spin, but he forced himself up, heart pounding, advancing on Pitch with a reckless grin. Pitch was looking distinctly fuzzy around the edges, as though sunlight were a liquid slowly dissolving him.

“Are you sure you’re not ready to go, grandpa?” said Jack. “You look ready to go.”

Pitch swayed to his feet. “Try me.” He brought up his scythe in a guard position—except his hands abruptly closed on empty air. The scythe, crafted as it was from darkness, had given up. Jack pointed and laughed.

“Dude, you’re, like, evaporating.”

“Oh, that’s nice. Do your friends know you still like to laugh at the suffering of others?” said Pitch acidly, backing away. “At least I’m not making a watery mess.” He blinked as the words left his mouth, and did a slight double-take. “Hang on. Look at the ground; you _are_ melting.”

“What?” Jack twisted to look behind him and nearly lost his balance. He glimpsed the trail of puddles just before Pitch tackled him. They went down hard on the stinging pavement. “Ow, ow! Get off me! You big cheater!”

Pitch yanked the staff out of his hands and rolled clear, gritting his teeth. The hot pavement wasn’t doing him any favors, either, but the struggle to stay standing had become too much. “Oh, come on, I’m making it even,” he gasped out. Half-blinded by shimmering heat waves, he levered himself up on one elbow to face whatever Jack threw at him next. “If you weren’t stupid enough to take your eyes off me…” He trailed off. Jack lay unmoving.

Pitch scooted to Jack’s side, dragging the staff. “Frost? Is this a trick?” No response. Recalling how horribly ticklish Jack was, he poked him none-too-gently in the ribs. As if in reproach, the flare of icy fear that Jack carried with him everywhere—the one that never really went away, the one that made him so easy to find, and which had danced so deliciously throughout this rooftop game—shrank to nothing. Jack had passed out.

“Jack!” Pitch shook him by the shoulder, mildly alarmed at the spreading pool soaking through the back of Jack’s sweatshirt. Where was all this water even coming from? He pressed the staff back into Jack’s senseless hands. “Snap out of it. …No? Not good enough? Very well. Looks like I win this round.”

Flinging an arm around the unconscious Guardian, Pitch reached for shadows to take them home. Nothing happened. “…Oh no.” He cast about for any reserves of power, but there were none; he was officially out-of-bounds. No one dreaded encountering shadowy monsters on the top of a parking garage on a sunny summer’s day, with traffic noise and human voices bouncing up from busy sidewalks. The mood was all wrong. If only a few clouds would cover the sun, just little ones, a bit grayish, they didn’t even have to be black…

The sun smiled down as brightly as ever. Pitch felt it in his back like needles as he dragged them both under a broken, leaning wall. “Jack, wake up! Be afraid—be very, very afraid!” He watched Jack’s drawn face and fought his own rising panic.

Jack’s eyelids fluttered, lashes thick with water. “Wut..?”

“There you are! Listen to me, quickly—you’re in terrible danger, and I need you to feel it.”

To Pitch’s disbelief, Jack laughed quietly and felt nothing at all. “Nice try,” he mumbled, slurring his words. “Nosiree. M’n not gonna lose.”

Pitch grabbed him roughly by both shoulders, eliciting a wince. “Jack, you idiot, this isn’t about the game anymore. Don’t you care that you could die?” He paused. This was not something he wanted to admit, but… “Listen. I-I’m stuck. I can’t warp us out. Do you understand me? The sun is too strong. We are trapped here.”

A small flicker of fear. Jack squinted up at him, clearly fighting to stay conscious. “But… no, that’s not poss…” Pitch wanted to scream. If Jack fainted again…

But then Jack’s eyes widened and his fear slammed on full-force. Pitch reached for it, read something that made the bottom drop out of his stomach—no, there was no time to analyze it now. Pitch steeled himself and drank it in as quickly as he could. Absorbing so much power on short notice hurt. He wrapped both arms around boy and staff, and clung. Shadows opened beneath them just as Jack lost consciousness once more.

 


	3. Suspension of Disbelief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pitch jumping to conclusions in 3... 2... 1...

* * *

A breath of summer heat followed them into the lair. Perhaps Antarctica would have been better, but Pitch wasn’t feeling nearly strong enough to brave the harsh, white glare. He wanted to monitor Jack in peace and comfort. It was already more than the little nitwit deserved.

He stumbled when his feet met stone; he managed to hold onto Jack, but the staff was too unwieldy. He left it where it fell. Splashes of water marked the few steps to his bed, a seldom-used canopy with all-black bedclothes and curtains. To actually sleep was to risk inviting the Sandman, but Pitch liked the comfort. When the curtains were closed, this was the one bed in the world that he didn’t have to get underneath in order to feel hidden, supported, and safe.

The curtains were open. Pitch ungracefully dumped Jack onto the covers, nearly losing his balance to a vicious head rush. He clutched a bedpost and tried to breathe away the black-red nausea. The walk around the bed would probably send him to the floor. With much cursing and wincing at the water sopping into everything, Pitch finally levered Jack and all of his gangly teenager limbs to the left side of the bed, and collapsed next to him. They lay in their separate ice-water puddles, one flat on his back, dead-white and motionless, the other waiting in the fetal position for the vertigo to stop.

It was difficult to know where the physical discomfort ended and the mental turmoil began. Everything hurt, all burns and deep ache and imbalance, and all of it was Jack’s fault. Stupid, stupid… Getting stranded was a rare event that had sneaked up on Pitch, but even in his worst-case-scenario calculations, he had always counted Jack’s fear as a constant. He tried to think back to other times he’d seen Jack in genuine life-or-death situations. He could only remember one, and that had been some decades ago. What had changed in Jack since then? Or… had anything changed? He couldn’t recall, because he hadn’t cared to know, whether Jack’s fear back then had been for his own survival, or if it was exclusively claustrophobia and pain of heat.

Come to think of it, had that other time even been an accident? How on earth had Jack managed to hide something like this from him, of all people? True, Jack really had been surprised to learn that they were stuck at the garage, but that wasn’t the point. His fear, which should have been _for himself_ , had been for Pitch. All of it. Every blazing molecule. Quality stuff, too.

And the rest of the game, what was that? Artifice, that’s what it was. Artificial, self-inflicted emotion, felt strongly enough to trick Pitch and then disappear the moment Jack lost his focus. And when a person had to focus in order to care whether they lived or died…

How _dare_ Jack encourage him to get attached?

This had done it. This had finally done it. Jack was never getting a single thing he asked for, ever again.

…Right. Pitch knew that when Jack woke up— _if_ he woke up—all he would have to do was smile, and everything would reset to the way it was just a few hours ago. It was enough to make an ex-villain’s vision go red.

Pitch was drifting in these unhappy thoughts when a faint crackling noise made him open his eyes. Very light, musical, reminiscent of glass under stress, it was the sound of the water beneath Jack beginning to freeze. The ice spread slowly through the bed’s fabrics. At the same time, fear stirred, grew stronger, and refocused itself sharply as Jack realized they were no longer on the rooftop. Pitch’s heart began to pound. He let out the breath he’d been holding, and shifted so his own clothing wouldn’t get stuck.

Jack’s first action, even before opening his eyes, was to start coughing. Pitch talked right over it. “Well! That was a learning experience. Did you always have a death wish, or did Guardianship tip you over? You do realize, if I’d known, I would never have agreed to go there with you. Oh, for goodness’ sake—what are you spitting up now? It had better be pure water. Honestly, can’t take you anywhere.”

Jack swallowed jagged chips of ice, caught his breath, and rolled to face Pitch. He stuck out his hand. “Staff,” he demanded hoarsely. When Pitch hesitated, his voice sharpened. “Give me my staff. Now.”

Pitch opened his mouth to demand a ‘please,’ and changed his mind. There was murder in those pale blue eyes. Of all the different flavors of frightened Jack, of course he’d get the angry one right now. _Of course_. Wordlessly (but with plenty of glaring for effect), he hauled himself over the edge of the bed, slumped to the floor, dragged the staff across the stones, and passed it up to Jack, who snatched it. Pitch had half a mind to roll right under the bed, after all. Instead, he crawled painfully back up and lay flat on his back with his arms crossed.

“Should you be traveling so soon?” he sniped, watching out of the corner of his eye as Jack struggled to sit up.

“I’m not leaving,” Jack rasped. “Can you just be quiet for five minutes?” Ice had bloomed over the staff again as soon as he touched it. He lifted it awkwardly above his head to tap the center of the canopy.

 _Oh._ Some of Pitch’s hurt drained away as Jack iced the canopy, the bedposts, the drapes, as much of any wall that he could reach, and finally the floor. It seemed to improve Jack’s temper, too. He leaned the staff on the wall beside the bed and flopped down with a grateful sigh. Cold air rained gently, raising a light fog in the small stone room. Jack’s fear stopped screaming _I can’t lose you_ , and simmered down to a steady bubbling of _Please don’t leave_ and _It’s my fault_.

To his credit, Pitch stayed quiet for eight minutes. “I suppose it’s true what they say about comedians harboring suicidal tendencies—”

A cold hand gropingly covered his mouth. “Shhh, babe, stop. Too sick for drama.” Pitch swatted the hand away, hearing Jack’s chuckle.

“Well, whose fault is that?” he hissed.

“Yours, actually,” said Jack. He yawned. “I had no idea you could get trapped like that. Why didn’t you say something? We could’ve died.”

Pitch ground his teeth and avoided commenting on the guilt Jack felt. If Jack wanted to pretend he wasn’t convalescing on a bed with a virtual mind-reader, that was his problem. “I can’t die. I would have been fine.”

“You didn’t sound fine,” said Jack mildly.

“All I had to do was wait for dusk, and I could have gotten us out with no trouble—assuming there was anything left of you for me to carry!”

Jack blinked. “Oh, yeah. I kinda forgot about the, uh… the passage of time.” Pitch’s sidelong glare did not change. “What? I was panicking, okay? I wasn’t rational.”

“Just rational enough to be frightened for my safety and, hmm, curiously, not your own,” Pitch retorted. “ ‘What if I can guarantee I’ll be afraid,’ indeed. And you called _me_ a cheater.”

Jack grimaced. “Ah.”

“Don’t ‘ah’ me! Where did you learn to manipulate yourself like that?”

“How do you think I didn’t bawl my eyes out for three hundred years? Jeez, it’s not even that hard. It’s like playing pretend. Suspension of willful disbelief, or whatever. So yes, I was focusing on the danger to make myself feel it more because, to you, that’s fun. Okay?” Jack edged closer, ice crunching. “I’m sorry I got you stuck. I swear, I had no idea that could even happen. I thought as long as there were shadows, you could get away.” His voice cracked slightly. _Please don’t leave me, it’s my fault_. He swallowed hard, and tentatively smoothed one hand onto Pitch’s shoulder. “You’re okay though, right? You look a little… Are you okay?”

Pitch shifted onto his side so he could look at Jack directly. That was a mistake. That hair, those lips and eyes, all blinding him as they had been for months, suddenly so close, and his nerves went to jelly. He covered it up with a deeper scowl. “Jack. I’m fine. There is nothing in this world that can put an end to me. Believe me, I know. You can lay that silly fear to rest.”

“That’s not what I’m asking.” Jack’s hand had fallen away when Pitch moved. Now it crept around Pitch’s wrist, almost high enough to curl into hand-holding. Ice crystals prickled. “If you’re not about to leave forever ‘cuz you’re mad at me, then what are you harping on me for? What is it with you and death, all of a sudden? What are you even talking ab…out…?” Jack trailed off, eyes searching. His eyebrows snapped together. “Wait! You thought—oh, nonono, you’ve got it all wrong. This is the saddest thing I’ve ever…” He took a shaky breath and extended both arms. “Come here.”

The world swam. Pitch didn’t move, so Jack wriggled the rest of the way across the gap between them, skootching up toward the headboard so he could draw Pitch’s head to his chest. Ice-dusted fabric tickled Pitch’s face, cool against the backs of his hands. One of Jack’s skinny arms ended up folded between them, knuckles the barest presence against gray skin. With the other arm curled around like a protective bird’s wing, Jack gently but firmly held Pitch to him.

“I’m not gonna die and leave you all alone again,” he said bluntly, his voice a buzz against Pitch’s scalp. “And I don’t have a fucking death wish, either. Look, I was taking it for granted that you’d get us out of there. I didn’t know you were counting on me, too. Oh, c’mon,” he said in response to Pitch’s indignant huff, “drop the attitude. You know I’m humoring you when I act like you’re not gonna save me. I know I’m safe with you, like it or not.”

“I don’t,” Pitch snapped, trying to breathe normally. “We’ve hardly passed a year since I trapped you down a ravine. Remember? You were a trusting fool then. I thought you’d have learned better.” Jack gave him a gentle squeeze, and he fell silent.

“Yeah, about that… Remember the time I fell asleep inside a chimney, and someone lit a fire under it? And next thing I know, I wake up on the ground in the woods, with my staff stuck up a tree and nobody around? This was seventy-something years ago.”

“You knew that was me?”

He actually heard Jack smile. “Yeah. I don’t know what the heck you wanted—you never even talked to me back then, unless it was to make fun of me. But you still did that. And I never forgot.” They lay in silence for a moment as Pitch mulled it over, Jack absently tracing patterns between his shoulder blades.

“Anyway,” Jack went on, “the thing about heat is, it’s awful being sick. Like, really bad. I feel like shit right now,” he said, his laugh sending a ripple through Pitch’s body. “But it’s not that scary. I know if I get stuck somewhere, sooner or later, someone else will come for me, or I’ll get out of it somehow. When it’s just me, I’m not worried. But you, I just… I never meant for you to get hurt.” His voice cracked again. He recovered with a chuckle. “Well, okay—I meant for you to get thrown around and beaten up and maybe bleed a little. But that’s it. You were never supposed to be in danger. I’m really sorry.” 

“I’m perfectly fine,” Pitch said again in a gentler tone. Internally, he was scrambling to piece together an explanation, any explanation, for all this that didn’t hinge on hopes he’d tried to squash a dozen times over.

Pitch was never one to accept a fraction when he wanted all. Friendship was friendship, a nice, solid box with walls made of harmless flirting. Venturing outside was dangerous. His Jack was always a joker, always fickle, almost cruel, sweeping them both along from one game to the next. Pitch was still learning to read him. For a little while after they became friends, he’d thought Jack might be angling for some sort of physical involvement, but not the rest, not everything and then some. And as time passed, he decided he must have been wrong in the first place. Jack continued to use small gestures of affection to manipulate him, and that was all. The utter lack of secrecy had thrown him off, too—no shy, shivery nervousness, no words struggling to come out.

They were there now. Everything was there in whispers below the surface, slowly growing louder, snowballing with information misinterpreted between sunshine and shadow. It was there in the slight tremor of a cold hand gliding up his spine to the back of his neck. The lingering pain of absorbing so much power took on a different cast, an unbearable sweetness of emotion that sent tingling bolts through the muscles of his abdomen, through his hips and thighs. There was nothing to do but relax into it, with a slow smile that Jack couldn’t see.

Jack lightly combed his fingers through Pitch’s hair, absolutely not helping. “No, you’re not. You somehow got it in your head that if I’m more afraid for you than I am for myself, it’s the same as me wanting to die. I’m not okay with that at all.” He sighed. “I really thought you were safe,” he muttered.

Pitch wondered if Jack could hear the thudding of his heart. “Everyone has limits, Jack.”

“Sometimes it feels like it’s just me.” Jack managed a soft laugh. “Or, I guess, just us. I’ve been feeling so limited,” he confessed. “So weak. Everyone else is amazing. And you, you’re so…” His fingers tightened briefly, just a flutter of pressure. He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. I’m probably still loopy from the heat. I should…” He began to pull away. Pitch finally dared to slip an arm around his waist, stopping him cold.

“Wh-?”

“I’m still far too warm, possibly burnt,” Pitch said into the fabric of Jack’s sweatshirt. He snuggled in closer. “You owe me.”

It was Jack’s turn to hesitate, and did it _ever_ feel good to turn the tables on him. With a cackle, Pitch jabbed him in the ribs from underneath with his free hand, and used Jack’s jump to slip his other arm beneath him.

“Ow!...Huh? Oh.”

More nervous laughter. Jack slowly softened into Pitch’s arms. His skinny form felt strong and yielding and wonderful to hold, and Pitch mentally kicked himself for not trying this sooner. Why did they both have to be such cowards?

“Great. So I’m your own personal cold compress,” Jack said, breathing shallowly. “I see how it is.” He wriggled his spine into a more comfortable angle, and tucked his chin over the top of Pitch’s head. Pitch felt the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed. _Got you._

“Limits aren’t so bad,” he said smoothly. “My nature is to magnify them. Yours is to push them. Without them, neither of us would exist.”

“Yeah, and look what happens when you get us both together on a bad day. Man, we didn’t think that through at all,” Jack said, laughing more freely. “Can you imagine if I really didn’t come back after I passed out the first time? My last words to you would’ve been, ‘Get off me, you big cheater.’”

Pitch grinned. “I’m more interested in all those words you thought you’d never have the chance to say. Want to share a few?” he said wickedly.

The gamble paid off. Jack choked. “Uh…m.”

“Oh, or how about this one: Want to tell me what it means to be more afraid for someone else than for yourself?”

“Now you’re just being rude,” said Jack hoarsely, but the smile in his voice was plain. “Damn it! You weren’t supposed to see that. We’re just friends, you freak. I’m not saying anything.”

“Shall I go out on a limb and remind you that I know what you’re afraid of right now? And it’s not rejection.”

Jack buried his face in Pitch’s hair, giggling helplessly. “But it was so funny watching you squirm! You really want to take that away from me?”

Pitch laughed. “You’re digging your own grave, Jack.”

Jack’s answer was a muffled groan and a string of curses.

“Very well. Perhaps I’ll use my victory to demand confirmation.”

The room’s atmosphere changed instantly. Jack wedged an arm’s distance between them and looked at Pitch sharply. “I didn’t lose.”

 


	4. Counterpoint

Pitch’s smiled slipped. “I beg your pardon? You were unconscious.”

“But did I ask to be rescued? Well, did I?”

“It was implied,” Pitch said hotly.

“Nnnnope. I specifically said, whoever _asks_ to go back first loses.”

" _What?”_

In a flash, they were both up on their elbows, shards of ice cracking counterpoint. Pitch had the dim realization that they were playing the same game as before, only on a bed instead of a rooftop. The enemy was clever.

“But—I was the only one with the power to leave. Why did you agree to the terms I set? There was no way for you to win!”

“Hey, I just wanted company! You’re the one who’s a sucker for competition.”

“So you blocked yourself from winning? The best you could do was not lose!"

“Yep, that’s right. And I didn’t lose.”

Pitch wondered how much trouble he would get into if he warped them up to the surface right now and drop-kicked Jack into the Southern Ocean. “Right. So no one wins,” he growled.

“That’s the way of the cold, cruel world.”

“I am going to do so many terrible things to you…”

“Oh yeah, like what?” Jack sat all the way up with only a little bit of swaying. His eyes glittered coldly in the fog still swirling around them. “C’mon. You want to get all bent out of shape about it? Go ahead and win. What’re you gonna do?”

Pitch looked at the bright-red flush creeping across those pale cheeks. “Oh, no, you don’t. You’re worming out of something, I can feel it. Now. This is interesting. Why wouldn’t Jack Frost want to win?” He drummed his fingers on the counterpane, both to give his hands something to do, and because it made Jack nervous. All kinds of anxieties were swimming in and out of focus. He flicked his eyes to Jack’s. “Plausible deniability, is that it? Trick me into making the first move so you don’t have to? Avoid responsibility if you decide you don’t like it?”

Jack’s mouth popped open. “No!” he said vehemently when his voice returned. “No, of course not. That’s something you would do. I didn’t plan any of this!”

Pitch smiled. “No, of course not,” he echoed. “You’re too _nice_ to manipulate people. This game spun completely out of your control, didn’t it? A very poor show for the Guardian of Fun… Ah, there you are.” A weak spot had revealed itself. He spoke directly to Jack’s fears—something he wasn’t sure Jack understood, but which was almost as good as a touch. “Well? Let’s have a hypothetical, and say you’ve won. Anything you ask for, I’m bound by the rules to give. What will it be? And don’t,” he said, tone deliberately sharp on the word, “tell me you’re faking again. I’ve got you. It’s real this time.”

Jack shuddered. Oh, he tried to pass it off as a shrug, but it wasn’t. “C’mon, Pitch. This was all just fun and games.”

“We’ll have new games.”

Jack bit his lip. “I mean… Forever is a long time to be bitter exes.” He tripped on the word, but kept going. “If things don’t work out, and you know they won’t. It’s a bad idea. I’ll mess it up, like I did today. You’ll get hurt.”

Jumping directly to a committed relationship, was he? Interesting. Pitch waved the concern aside. It was genuine, but not what he was hunting for. “ _I’ll_ get hurt? Nice try. Go on, Jack,” he said, putting on his most soothing tone. Each word was a nudge to a microscope’s dial. “It’s just a hypothetical. Anything you want. I won’t stop you. Your game, your rules. All possibilities are open to you. …Oh, look at you,” he breathed. The tingling in his body deepened, amplifying the sensations of soft blankets and sharp ice. He shifted his position languidly, eyes fixed on Jack’s. “I should have seen it before. You’ll do anything to keep yourself from feeling too much.”

“Well, yeah! I already knew that.” Jack’s face was full of pleading, eyes overbright, though it still showed the promise of a smile. “You don’t know the half of it.”

“I’ll know soon enough.”

“Do you understand what you’re asking of me?”

“Play with me, Jack.”

“I…”

Jack broke and lunged for the exit. Unthinking, Pitch flung out a hand and caught him by the hood. For one wild moment, Pitch was afraid that Jack might shed his sweatshirt like a lizard breaking off its own tail, and escape. Jack’s strangled yell heralded a tidal swell of personal horrors, all playing off each other, Jack teetering at the crest, Pitch right there with him—

Then a small, strong hand was on his wrist, gripping hard enough to bruise. Pitch cried out and automatically tried to tug Jack down on the bed. Jack spun on his knees and narrowly kept his balance. Shooting Pitch a look of pure venom, he adjusted his grip, bringing his head down to lick Pitch’s index finger into his mouth.

 _What?_ Pitch’s jaw dropped. His voice was lost somewhere. Softness, wetness, slick and cold as ice. A tongue a little bit rougher, like snow, drinking away what little heat his own neutral body temperature would offer. The slide as Jack went deeper, the scrape of teeth, and then the pinch of premolars up near his second knuckle, hinting at a bite. Jack no longer met his eyes, but what he could see of Jack’s face—lowered eyelids, spreading blush—swept another sweet wave up his spine. He gasped, and felt Jack hum in amusement.

Just as quickly as he had the first time, Jack pulled away, and came back with both Pitch’s index and middle finger in his mouth. He sucked gently, turning his head so Pitch could touch the ridges in the roof of his mouth. That dragged a sound from Pitch’s throat, at last.

Jack’s hands began to wander, one thumb massaging circles around the sensitive base of Pitch’s palm, while the other hand ghosted down his arm and took a grip on the inner elbow. Jack crept forward, nudging. Pitch hardly noticed that he was being maneuvered onto his back until he was already there, he was so intent on keeping his hand exactly where it was.

He hadn’t noticed Jack swing a leg over his hips, either. But there was Jack, straddling him. Not resting any weight yet, of course. The fine trembling in Jack’s hands was echoed in his rigid stance, quietly terrified at his own daring. He lost his balance and pressed a hand to Pitch’s bare chest for only a moment, steadying himself to graze his fingernails back up the soft inside of Pitch’s arm. That snow-rough tongue slid down between his fingers, then all the way back up as Jack pulled away. He delicately licked away excess saliva and gave a tiny kiss to each fingertip, ending with a sharp nip to the web between index finger and thumb.

Pitch’s arm was throbbing up to the shoulder, down through the center of his body. He looked up at Jack, now perched gingerly on his stomach.

“ _How?_ ” Pitch demanded.

Jack tossed his head. “Guardian of Fun,” he said huskily. “I’m getting better at figuring out what makes people tick. One of the only ways I’m getting stronger, it feels like.” He lowered his eyes, thumbs beginning that infernal circling again on Pitch’s wrist. “I see your weak spots. Is that… This can’t really be okay with you, can it?”

“What?” Pitch reached out his free hand to squeeze Jack’s knee. “How on earth could this possibly be a drawback?” He inhaled sharply at the prick of teeth on his captive wrist, over the pulse-point. Jack strummed the tendons with his eyetooth, his lips seeming velvet-soft in contrast. They couldn’t be—they looked so chapped…

And now he was thinking all about them.

He watched that tongue, those hands, trace their way back up his arm, one following another, the shadows on his skin stirring at their touch like disturbed sediment. All the way, Jack’s thoughts— _I can’t believe I’m doing this. I cannot. Believe. I’m doing this._ —sizzled inside him. And Jack kept going, anyway. Jack bore down on his fears and rode them like an avalanche, and Pitch didn’t want to breathe for fear it would break the spell.

He let his free hand run lightly up Jack’s thigh to clasp his hip, carefully, hesistantly, a thrill shooting through him at Jack’s subtle arch in response. The prick of teeth again, on the inside of his elbow this time, and Pitch’s voice got away from him.

“Aah! Jack. Oh, Jack, give me your fears, we’ll transform them into something you won’t regret, I’m sure of it-” He shivered as Jack’s face neared the crook of his neck, and turned his head hopefully.

Jack darted around to nip his earlobe, and pulled away.

Pitch craned upward, beyond caring how much his expression must be revealing. “Why are you holding back? _Oh_.” His eyes fluttered shut at the sting as Jack’s fingers roughly buried themselves in his hair, letting his head follow their sharp tug back down.

“Plausible deniability?” Jack mimicked nastily. “Or maybe it’s because you haven’t actually asked for any of this.” Pitch stayed perfectly still, panting. Those surprisingly strong fingers eased up on his hair.

“Um… there’s one more thing, too,” Jack said somewhere above him. The renewed hesitation in his voice buzzed in Pitch’s veins. He opened his eyes.

“What is it?”

Jack loomed over him with eyes like flint. “It’s when you…” he started. And stopped. He took a breath, visibly irritated with himself. He looked Pitch dead in the eyes. “Don’t ever grab me like that again.”

_The hood._

There had been so many reality-shifting moments today that Pitch should have been used to the feeling. The space between them, so charged with tension, felt like a physical object reminding him exactly what kind of history they had. Just when Pitch thought the stakes couldn’t get any higher, Jack’s words brought back the painful sound of splintering wood, and the weightlessness of a small body flung in anger off a cliff. It was impossible to tell if Jack knew what he’d just done; he was still preoccupied with the dread of speaking his mind to someone he loved.

Maybe Jack's problems ran deeper than Pitch thought, and he'd inadvertently walked right into them. Hammered on them.

In that room, on those half-destroyed bedclothes with the soft air twining around the two of them, Pitch melted.

“Jack,” he said simply. “You’re allowed to leave. You know that, don’t you? You’re… always free to go.” Jack was sitting stark upright again, staring at him. The words were broken glass in Pitch’s throat. He kept going. “That’s what it is, isn’t it? Restriction? Maybe that’s what strong emotions do, maybe that’s… what I am, but I swear to you, I will not restrict you further. I won’t stop you leaving again. Please,” he said, aware he was rambling but unable to stop, “tell me no. Tell me to leave you alone. You said you felt safe. I… wish it were true.”

For long moments, Jack just blinked at him, expression remote and so, so sad.

“Is that so?” he whispered finally. “I could just… get up right now and leave you like this, no consequences? Could I do it all again? Any time I want, maybe?”

Pitch squirmed. Why did Jack have to say something so provocative? From his vantage point, he could see that Jack was in the same trouble he was. Those legging were tight, it couldn’t be comfortable… he _wouldn’t_ leave now, would he? But that wasn’t the question, was it?

Pitch nodded.

Jack smiled.

In his heart’s leap of excitement at the sight of it, Pitch realized it had been missing since he’d tried to pull Jack down. Jack was bending over him one more time, slowly moving in close, his fingers stroking into Pitch’s hair again. Pitch closed his eyes, and found that he was smiling, too.

Jack trailed his mouth along the side of Pitch’s neck, allowing just a hint of teeth against the sensitive skin. Pitch felt cold breath against his ear.

“New rule,” Jack whispered, so close to him, _so_ close. “Whoever asks for things to go back to the way they were, …wins.”

Pitch groaned. “Jack, mercy! Won’t you please just kiss-”

Jack’s mouth cut him off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm... a horrible tease of an author, I'm sorry. There will be less clothing in the next update, and it will happen sooner than this one. I'm so sorry.


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